water hoses and birmingham. >> did it help the hon so was an educated city? northern alabama? does that make a difference is? >> felt more than anything is that counsel had tied its state to the space industry. werner von braun was already there. a lot of people, a lot of engineers and scientists have descended on alabama. the city wanted to disassociate itself from the rather races of the rest of the state, and that help them to negotiate this quietly. so, yakima from the beginning i had memories. civil-rights activists. after the voting civil-rights act passes and the voting act, they turned to politics. i grew up looking.

that's the national democratic party. i have memories. my father ran for governor against george wallace in 1970. i just had these memories of my summers being taken all around the state, particularly the black. those counties that were the center of the plantation economy during antebellum marron, not surprising 100 years later, all the black votes. and it felt like particularly during that election in 1970 and that felt like that had been carried to every black church in the black belts. and i watched my father give this speech over and over and over again, invoking frederick. that famous line that's where it comes from. frederick douglass to my attention, as it is daughter,

frederick dollars to the frederick douglass was my father's zero. what he was on the campaign trail in the black belt cities their poor trying to get a reason to register a vote and get to the polls. he would almost the vote douglas and said still sit around waiting for other people to do right by you. the demand power. a professor of law. i teach -- the legal history course call race in america alone which covers most of the major race decided by the supreme court. i also teach constitutional law. sometimes property. sometimes open government. >> when you approach public affairs are when you sent this

manuscript to a publisher the answer back from public affairs. why were they interested? >> well, fortunately i already have a prior relationship. public affairs which was a book about -- the book is titled in racing, but is about why we stood to be an immigrant society. i had a relationship with them. i sent a proposal to them be my agent. the first book and promoting the first book. they knew that as hard as it is to get attention for more if you're not ferris, i think they knew that it was a fairly tenacious person. they also thought the story compelling. thank you. >> just a short conversation with tourists on professor sheryll cashin about her second book, "the agitator's daughter."

a memoir for generations, extra an african-american family. by the way, book tv covers professor sheryll cashin earlier on this book, and it's about an hour's flight. the king go to ed book tv -- booktv.org. the search function up in the upper right-hand corner and type in the name in the canarsie entire hour. thank you for being with us. >> book tv has over 150,000 were followers. follow book tv on where to get publishing news of a scheduling a states, other information, and talk directly with of this during our live programming. twitter.com/booktv. >> up next, set down with book tv at georgetown university to talk from his book. ethics and policy in atlantic democracy. just over 15 minutes.

>> you're watching book tv on c-span2. every month we visited different university to talk to professors who are also authors. john joining us on book tv, thomas been shot, the author of this book, embryo politics. professor benjamin, what do you mean by andrea politics? >> politics centered on the critical of the question. when human life begins and deserves protection about when india's might be sacrificed. a parent's to medical knowledge. it's something we are familiar with in this country, of course, the context of systems of the bay for the last decade. passionate debate. what i do in the book is i go back for decades, the beginning, show how it develops to the point it has reached today, but also president broader international context there an examination of france, the u.k., germany as well.

>> why did you choose those? the subtitle also refers to atlantic democracies, but why did you choose as this is? >> well, several reasons. one is on the europeans by training, a political scientist, and of living your 67 years. i know these countries and other languages, the culture, and it's important to be able to immerse yourself in a different culture in crafting a book like this, but i think the main reason has to do with the fact that these a leading scientific powers that have been on the cutting edge of the science, technology, as well as the ethical debates around these issues. and it's in these countries that you see the political systems take up these questions in a systematic fashion. >> when the the history of embryo politics begin? >> well, for 1968, a year that is familiar to us as one of great social unrest, but i suspect historians looking ' it for another reason. that is the first time in human history that is human egg and

sperm were united in a laboratory in 1968 in cambridge. it's the beginning of a story that began around questions of ibf, in vitro fertilization. a story that led to the birth of the first child by ibm for test-tube baby in 1978 that rise up through embryonic stem cell research. initial breakthrough in 1998 and right up to today. >> who are the -- who is the father and your mother of the embryo politics? who began this experiment that led to 1968? >> well, a team based in the u.k. that were first successful in the creation of an embryo and the laboratory and began first deficit transfer. it was an international race that had been going on for some time, including researchers from different countries. the politics of it really only picked up after it came to a wider public notice. the committees and so on have

looked into it in the 1970's. debates within bureaucracies on both sides of the atlantic, but i think seeing that first child through icf and 1978, which we all remember, those of us who are old enough, really brought this issue to the attention of a wider public. >> 1978, it does that compare to the the founding of a vaccine for polio, eccentric? >> i think so. absolutely. in fact, qualitatively different kind of gesture. it's not another vaccine, however important, is the first time in human history that a child has been conceived a laboratory outside the womb. raises, as i said, all kinds of issues about family life that we have been wrestling with, km, childhood, sexuality, and what i focus on in this book is what it means for science and technology

and where we want to draw the lines, where we have john lies in the past, where we want to draw lines in the future about the kinds of research that we are willing to err have with embryos in a laboratory. >> professor banchoff, would you consider embryo politics to be a personal issue, difficult issue, a state issue, a religious issue? flex it think it's all of those. as a political scientist, most interested in the political dimension. what makes this book different from most political science books is the centrality of ethics and fundamental questions about life and death and human suffering that also go back to the personal level that you mentioned. look back to a great philosophical and religious traditions. for example, again, we are familiar with this from the embryonic stem cells debate. how do you balance the moral status of the embryo, human life at very early stages against the promise of regenerative medicine research they're embarrassed

themselves that may help bus tour or at least address diseases such as parkinson's and alzheimer's? both of those are moral imperatives, and it's fascinating to me to see how different societies with different histories seat to join those moral imperatives in practice and how governments and political parties that the mob and pass the laws that regulate this kind of activity. he would walk restaurant give us a snapshot of some of the european approach is to embryonic politics. >> well, they're different. that is one of the fascinating things that i learned. secular scientists. a country like germany where religion plays much less a rural in the political sphere than it does in the united states, or france. perhaps an even more important example. coaches were religion is less

important than politics, and the politics and the regulations that emerge are more conservative, more restrictive than they are in this country. >> how does that happen? >> well, it has to do with the very different historical legacies that shape debates on both sides of the atlantic. in the u.s. and to some degree in the u.k. its abortion which france -- which represents a frame of reference, and that immersed gradually. so the issue of embryo research, stem cell research with embryos, is grafted on to of very polarized abortion debate in this country. there for religious conservatives against scientists. germany and france the abortion issue was never settled, but sort of compromise was reached early on in the 1970's were by abortion was recognized as a serious moral concern, the taking of innocent human life, but legislators made the decision not to prosecute women or doctors.

that kind of pragmatic compromise took a portion of the table so that the issue of embryo research, still sell research his friend but different legacies, and in germany the most important legacy is eugenics, the experience for human experimentation during the nazi era, something the residence in france as well, and so there is generally more cautious about science and technology and pressing some of the limits that americans aren't more willing to bush and the scientific side and more skeptical of a religious side. >> professor, do you agree? do you feel that abortion is relative to the embryonic politics to attack. >> i think it is. i mean, the issues that erased a front about when life begins and deserves protection the bases that we recognize in the abortion debate. but the connection does not have to be as strong as it is in this country, and in fact and it's quite fascinating to see how the catholic church in the first

decade after this 1968 breakthrough did not framed the issue of embryo research and ibf in terms of the abortion debate. they're concern was with the idea of using technologies and reproduction, taking sexuality outside america bowl and into the laboratory. that was the major concern. you can't really find much on the catholic side until the 1980's condemning this at the taking of an innocent human life, this kind of research. what happens is the abortion issue heats up, and the church finally comes out with the position in 1987 and non embryo research that is very restrictive and makes the connection, but it wasn't there at the beginning. >> the pro-life movement in these european countries that you explore. >> there are most certainly the u.k., as i mentioned before similar to the u.s.

there was a time in the mid 80's when it looks like the pro-life movement there might be able to mold -- mobilize parliament behind a total ban on embryo research. that effort failed, and since then they have been on the defensive. they don't have the same societal base in the church is the pro-life movement us here. the pro-life movement in germany and france is much less significant. >> professor, what have we done scientifically since 1978 when louise brown was born? >> well, a key juncture to place five years later when scientists were able to freeze work prior preserve embryos. so since then we have dealt with the question of the embryos left over from the idea of treatments, many of which will not be used by our parents open to have children . and so that breakthrough have preservation, the ability to pile embryos and use them in resech